Ranking in Google in foreign countries - what to do ?

[FishingDad]

How to get a UK based website prominent in Google in foreign lands?

Our main domain is .co.uk, we have the .com .eu .net .co .mobi .net. All of which 301 to the .co.uk

Our site is 100% English language and we do get export orders currently but the traffic we get is 90% uk.

It would be impossible to have the site 100% translated for products etc etc but we could do this for the “engine” ie checking out, terms and cons, delivery info. But choosing which languages?

Would this make a difference in getting more prominent in Google overseas even though the server is in the UK?

Then take English speaking countries, is it that our main domain is .co.uk and not .com that we do not show well in the USA for eg?

Anyone got any experience of this?

[phranque]

.co.uk is a ccTLD and to rank in another specific country you will need that ccTLD or to rank in RoW you will need a gTLD.

[FishingDad]

We have the .com address which 301s to .co.uk and has so for many years. Are you suggesting we 301 the .co.uk to this and make the sites main domain .com rather than .co.uk

Would this really matter considering the server is in the uk and would we risk losing uk traffic by changing. The site is 8 years old as a .co.uk

[RedBar]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld FishingDad

or to rank in RoW you will need a gTLD.

Hmmm...I totally disagree!

However the fact is your site may need a lot more "adjustments".

Your easiest solution insofar as G is concerned is simply to register as a .com on a US server and pretend to be a US site, that is, basically, how stupid their current algo is! Yes, G loves promoting US sites globally...and I mean in every country.

Or just have a Blogger site, yay, problem solved!

[phranque]

you will need a gTLD.

Hmmm...I totally disagree!
...
Your easiest solution insofar as G is concerned is simply to register as a .com

.com is a gTLD.

[rainborick]

phranque has it right, of course.

For details on how geo-location/geo-targeting works in Google, check out Google's advice for Multi-Regional Sites [support.google.com] and Country Targeting [support.google.com]. These pages explain how geo-location works and how Country Code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) and Generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) are treated by Google in this regard (which is largely the same for Bing and Ask as well). It's what you need to know if you want your site to be in the best position to target a single country or to attract search engine traffic from more than one country.

It's also important to remember that geo-location and language are separate issues.

[FishingDad]

Thanks for the help so far folks.

[support.google.com...]

From this I am understanding we can simply stop the 301 redirect of our .com address, effectively having a complete duplicate of our .co.uk on the .com address. This go against what I thought about duplicate content hence why we have had the sub domains setup to 301.
However where G says "Can use Webmaster Tools geotargeting" I presume the .com will popup in the WMT once its been spidered and I can tell them the .co.uk is still just UK and the .com is for the rest of the world? I could edit some of the pages so they are different from one to the other but 99% of the site is going to be completely duplicated, bit of a worry.

And then what of other search engines?.. how are they going to look at this.

[rainborick]

The .com won't just "pop up" in WMT. You'll have to add it to your sites manually.

You don't have to take any action in regard to geo-targeting on the .uk site because it is a ccTLD which is automatically locked into being targeted at the UK.

While gTLDs can attract traffic from multiple countries, the search engines will still set a primary geo-location for the domain (based on the factors noted in the articles I mentioned) and that country will generally be the source of the vast majority of the site's search engine traffic. The good news is that you can use Google WMT and Bing WMT to select a Geographic Target, not just for the domain as a whole, but also set different targets for individual directories and subdomains. You don't want to set up so many directories/subdomains for targeting that you dilute your site's ranking strength so much that it outweighs the potential increase in traffic. Go slow with adding additional targets until you gain some experience with how the site performs.

You needn't worry about duplicate content issues. Google doesn't penalize duplicate content. They choose a best (ie. "canonical") version of a page and filter out the others. Part of the canonicalization process is geo-location.

Stick to the advice in those articles and don't try to target too many countries right away, and you'll be fine.

[Robert Charlton]

What phranque and rainborick said.....

Several factors that one of the Google articles mentions in passing, which in my experience should be emphasized... links from local sites are a big signal, IMO... and localized content (addresses, phone numbers, currency, holidays, etc) should be considered as important.

If you use the .com to target the US market, keep in mind that the US is likely to be more competitive than the UK is. If you're targeting the export market (ie, the US from the UK), then you've got to make a compelling case in your content that you are offering something that is worth an international order.

[guggi2000]

Which countries are you targeting, the US or other European countries? Your question implies two problems because you ask about which languages you should translate to and whether you should host the .com in the US.... These are 2 completely different issues. By the way, how do this foreign users arrive at your site in the first place? I assume only English keywords...

For the US:
This is probably your biggest problem, because it is already in English. I would build a parallel site on the .com and place unique content there, so that each page is different by more than 30% or 40% from the original UK version. It takes time and a lot of work. Do not touch your "co.uk" site ever! Regardless of what people or Google is telling you, just don't.
Besides, think also of your users, not only Google. Won't Brits be more likely to buy from a UK site than a .com site?

For non-US:
Buy country specific domains, not eu, mobi, net... I mean .de, .fr, .it, .es and each country you wanna sell in. It is a good start to translate the engine, but the bad news is that you need to translate the entire product description too.
Would you buy the following Nike shoes? "O yeni Nike ayakkablar seviyorum"...
Unless you are in a very English-dominant industry conversion rates will be low and it won't be worth the effort.

Hosting: keep the mobi, net, eu on 301. For the other European countries, you can keep the server in the UK. You may want to buy other regional IPs, but I doubt it will have a large impact.

Languages:
Start with German or French.

Plan:
IMO, start with offering a version in foreign languages without touching hosting and domain issues. I.e. whenever a user comes from Germany tell him "Would you like to view the site in German?". See how it goes and if conversion rates are the same or better. Once you see that people interact in the foreign language go to the next steps. In the meantime make sure that your pages are not indexed. Do it step by step and do not underestimate the effort and cost in entering a new market.

Good luck!